What could Season 1 of this game have done to be better?

Menofthe214

God where do I start. I enjoyed this game but however there are flaws and things that didn't make sense. I'll start with Arthur getting flayed. Why was this scene even in the game? We already saw that one guy getting flayed at dark in the woods as Gared. But that's not the problem. The problem was that players feel like they are forced to watch him get tortured by Ramsay and not be able to do anything about it (it was sad, disappointing, and hard to see Youtubers go through this scene). He should only have gotten flayed if you tortured Gryff or if you kept him at Ironrath. Arthur with you to Highpoint. Next is the traitor scene. I know they wanted to make it someone other then the maester so it wouldn't be obvious but I agree that making the traitor based on who you made Sentinel is stupid. The player could easily tell right away that it was only based on who you picked as Sentinel. Another thing is determinant characters. Characters like Bowen, Erik, and Bloodsong had really short appearances and was more close to the point like they were not even there. They appear at one point a disappear right after. We could have seen Bowen and Erik be useful by killing off some whitehills. That would have made us feel that our choice mattered. Not only that, but they disappear and we don't know their fates if they didn't die by Harys. And then there's Mira. Mira's purpose during episode 3 was to get the coin for the sellswords. But Asher ended up paying for them anyway. Other then that I didn't see any use playing as Mira or how she could help House Forrester. I still think Mira had potential to do better as a character. By the way I'm not that excited for Season 2 as I was before considering what I just wrote and it's been almost 2 years since Season 1 finished. I honestly think the only choices that will be carried to next season will be the Asher/Rodrik,Sentinel/Traitor, and Gwyn choice. Sadly I don' think most of the choices will be put in Season 2. For example if you had either Erik or Bowen die by Harys and the other alive, I doubt it will be generated into Season 2. Also there's the bag and chest of gold. We don't know what happened to it. Last is that I think Telltale went to far in terms of killing off characters. For example, the Beast. He seemed like a cool character and we didn't get to see him live up to his name (meaning he seemed like he had lots of potential). Now that I mentioned this, I think there could have been more variations in terms of choices. It would have been better if they went with a win/lose instead of a lose/lose situation. After all, this is a choiced based game. I honestly think this is on the same level as The Walking Dead Game Seasons 1, 2, and 3. Why? Because no matter what happens people will die excluding a few characters. Anyways I keep asking myself how the things I mentioned above could be avoided and put with better writing. So here are some of my questions:

1. Was the Arthur and Traitor scene really necessary?
2. If you think they were, how do you think they could have been better handled?
3. How would you have liked to see what effect determinant characters can have, meaning what would you have liked these determinant characters to do and affect the story?
4. How could Mira's story have been better?
5. How many choices do you think will be generated into Season 2 and what are those choices?
6. Did Telltale go to far in killing off characters?
7. What could the Beast have done if he was alive?
8. What ending variations would have you liked to see?
9. Do you think it could have been a win/lose story? Why or why not?

One more thing I forgot to say. I bet if the Glenmore guard had stayed in Ironrath and the pit fighters all made it to Ironrath, then it might have been possible for the Forresters to win. I think that would have been a cool ending variation that could have been based off a couple of choices involving the Glenmores and pitfighters.

TeamKennyW00T

1. I think the Arthur scene and the Traitor scene were both necessary, but I agree they could have been done better.
2. I think, with the Arthur scene, it could have been made better if his getting flayed depended on where we chose to keep our Glenmore soldiers. If Arthur was there, he gets flayed. If he wasn't someone else would get flayed, like Ortengryn. I do think someone should have gotten flayed in that scene, because it really accentuates the war that was coming. As for the traitor scene, it really was lazy, about how it was done. It was set up really well, but it could have been done better if it was based on multiple choices, such as in the case of Kenny in Season 1 of the Walking Dead. Kenny's loving you or hating you isn't the result of one choice, it's built up through multiple choices. It could have been like that for the traitor too. If you, as Rodrik, chose more rash actions than calm ones, than Duncan should have been the traitor, and vice versa. And I'm not sure what it would be, but with Royland being the traitor, being calm and giving away information doesn't make any sense, so they should have found another way to betray House Forrester.
3. I mean I guess I would have liked the determinant characters to be more impactful, although none of them were huge characters in the first place, so I didn't really mind them not having much influence.
4. Mira's story started out amazingly up until Episode 3. After Episode 4, her story kind of was just there as a placeholder until the events of Episode 6 where she starts to matter again. Maybe they could have done her story from episode 6 in Episode 4, had her live past the execution and make it to Tom's master and try to escape. I really don't like the fact that she died at the end. She had so much more potential.
5. Well, the biggest ones will be included in Season 2. The Asher/Rodrik choice obviously, and the Duncan/Royland choice. The Mira marriage choice will carry, and Gared's leave the North Grove choice will affect things. Other than those, the other choices may have slight impact, but there isn't any really glaring ones. Gared's choice whether to use Cotter for Blood magic might affect a little bit, since the wight things might start to wear off. I don't mind the rest of them not carrying much, because they wouldn't logically carry over.
6. I think they did fine in terms of killing off characters. Mira's death peeved me quite a bit, but other than that I feel most deaths did quite a bit for the story. Maybe not the Beast. I agree, he went down too easy, but I didn't see him surviving past the battle anyway. There are plenty of characters that will be returning, so it's not going to be like the Walking Dead.
7. Well, the Beast would have wrecked the shit out of some Whitehill soldiers, but I like I said, I couldn't see him surviving past the battle. He's too big a target for arrows and he wouldn't be wearing armor to fend them off.
8. I would have liked to see if we might have been able to win the war. That would have been an interesting outcome, but honestly, I see the Forresters losing as a superior ending story-wise. It sets up ground for Season 2 nicely. I'm still pretty excited for it.
9. I think it might have been, but if we could do one or the other, I think it would have been too drastic a change. The story would either have to follow an entirely new cast in Season 2 or follow a different plot than the Whitehill conflict. It's nice to theorize about different choices being implemented, but in the end, it would be too terribly hard to make a game with two drastically different plot lines. I think they did the best with what they could do in terms of the ending.

spacetraveller

Yes the whole of the Mira experience seems pointless, considering she potentially dies at the end of the season. Do telltale games ever do a 'game over' if you make a wrong choice earlier on ? I'm guessing not, but if it does, that would be neat.

Why is Royland so useless ? In episode 1 or 2 (can't remember now), you see him training all these fighters and they seem battle hardy. However these fighters are hardly seen or when they are they seem weak as hell - where are they when Ramsay walks in the first time ? If they wanted to improve the story, then put in a hostage drama or something so that it doesnt' seem so irrational that all the fighters they supposedly building up just vanish into thin air.

My other gripe from my recent play is that Asher sent word back ahead of time to tell everyone that they where returning with an army. Really dumb of them to do so, wasn't it ?

Ok, one thing that could be cool in the next series is for them to bring back to life (through types like Dondarrion) one of the characters that gets killed at the end of season 1, for example if Asher dies, then they bring him back to life and then you see him looking kinda zombie like haha.

To answer your questions (briefly):
1) I think there's more than that that felt unnecessary and overly contrived to make each thread meet with a supposedly major choice.
2) Perhaps make one of the guards a traitor instead... The writer for season 2 is probably grappling with the difficulty of having to handle so many varieties of directions you could have taken in that matter. The Arthur scene was brutal, I would have appreciated it if one of the pathways lead to him living.. Would give a better sense of being in control of the course of the game by doing good.
3) Definitely need more of an effect on how the other characters engage them, have their choices affect how things shape up for the family a bit more..
4) Right now it seems Mira's bit is wasted. The only affect she has had in the story is helping Rodrik to get married, pretty much, which is pointless in any ways in the end. It's quite sad that her pathway is so pointless.
5) I'm expecting at least one resurrection.And then a few killoffs. Not sure how they will carry Mira's story forward, as she's dead in some of the choices, so kinda pointless. Definitely expecting Asher's older brother to come back into the storyline, but that seems almost inevitable when Dhany makes a return to Westeros ? Could that be the reason that we're waiting for season 7?
6) Yes, too many of the characters that were important in the family have disappeared. Ryon is not going to be fighting anytime soon unless the next season takes place years later, in which case the family that survives will be living in submission to the Whitehills. Perhaps there will be a lot of time elapse during the season itself, but I find that hard to believe they will do that. There aren't many solid characters left of the Forresters to be honest, too many branches and a lot of development work for them if so, they would need to work some magic - possibly resurrection of one of the brothers would help. I think that the writers made a mistake killing one of them off, and made it hard for the next writer to continue. The decision for Gared to either stay and protect the north or to journey south is also a huge diversion that writers would need to attend to. Perhaps something can force them to go in one direction, it would be cool to have some scenes with Mance and so forth.
7) Lots of stuff that would have us rubbing our fingers in glee.
8) Perhaps more uncertainties, a little more glimpse of something positive, and emotive scenes, rather than '3 major Forresters just died' and Ironrath completed gutted and devastated, and the Mira pathway.
9) Absolutely, and it should have been. It would have been nice to have some sort of satisfaction, and an option to do terribly from your bad decisions.